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When we eventually got ourselves a taxi at ten past eight, we were not on schedule for our bus to Cambodia! It took 15 minutes to try and bargain a taxi driver down from 300B to the bus terminal and none of them would go on the metre which was really frustrating. We had to give up and pay it.
Of course Bangkok has rush day not rush hour.
(I knew I should have bought that 'I love bangkok' tshirt last night and burnt it in the street!)
This city is not my favourite place and the Thais are getting on my last nerve a little, I just think they all want something. They're all in it for the money.
He was trying to be chatty to us whilst we sat at traffic lights for 10 minutes near enough without them changing to green, I couldn't smile I was nearly sick with the worry that we were going to miss our 9am bus. We asked him to go on the toll roads, I didn't care how much. He could see the panic in my face so he 'get you on toll roads I drive fast, you no smile, you worried' yeah shaking like a leaf! But he got us there with 15 minutes to spare, fair play to him! And then the bus didn't even leave until 9.25am! What a total parlarva!
The bus ride was like being on a school trip, luckily one person was a no show so I got to sit next to Scott, we had the best seats on the bus, they reclined the most to almost lying in horizontal position! They gave us water and a little brown bag with a horrible pastry, a cookie I didn't try and a carton of orange juice.
Then we stopped for a pti stop about 2 hours in and then just before we stopped at the border they fed us lunch, it was vegetable and egg fried rice, which was really good!
When we stopped at the border they asked to all get off, not clear whether it was the actual border or not. Plus the horror stories that I had read and what we have been told, I imagined the place to be in the middle of know where, little men sat in their booths one side and then a big field of nothing in the middle of no where which people had been calling 'no mans land' where there are a load of men trying to grab your bags and pull to one side to buy a visa, just a load of scams and the army have a say in it and are basically in it with them. Also at the Cambodian border they try to ask for more for a photo or 100baht processing fee so you have to refuse but when people said you don't mess with the army I expected them to be stern b******s that carry big guns and look angry all the time.
In reality it was completely different, the area was a bustling town with people and vehicles everywhere, yes there were the odd scam artists trying it on with you but not to the extent we were scared by. They didn't tug on your clothes and it wasn't absolutely jammed pack. We followed the crowd through the gate, walked the walkway with beggars and the odd shop shack on the side until we got into a building with thai immigration, they took your photo and stamped your passport. That bit was fine!
Then we walked through what was apparently no mans land, there were little shop shacks everywhere, an embassy and two huge casinos, with the line of casinos following after it in the Cambodia side. We walked all the way through and found the arrivals hut, started to fill out our arrival card when we didn't know our visa no. Expecting to get it when we got to the desk, luckily I asked and we had missed the visa building! So we traipsed back towards Thailand to find this building, we found some Canadians from our bus and they pointed us in the right direction, it was easy to miss with all the distractions! The officers greeted us warmly and a few were quite bubbly and happy. We filled the form out and gave them out photos before they asked for them.
Then the money part, they asked for $30 + 100B which I had read about, you just have to refuse and say you don't have any baht. He did persist for about 3-4 times but in the end gave up and looked pretty pissed about it. Waiting for our visa to be processed which took all of 5 minutes, we were listening in to a woman having an argument with a 'scam artist' she had paid him baht for her visa and wanted it back, there's nothing you can do because it is done and dusted and the army were stood around not doing anything, hmm I wonder why they didn't want to know when she tried speaking to them... she obviously hadn't realised they are all in it together. Anyways it as going pretty smoothly for us so far. Although now the dreaded queue. It took us 1 half hours to get through arrivals, we had to have our finger prints done and photo. And then we were in! Way easier than we thought and the army men were just around laughing and sat down eating, those who were doing the visas and finger prints were stern but that was a front I think, they can't do any angry face to save their life's - well in comparison to me haha!
Onto the bus that waited for us in no man's land, like a bunch of school kids with our badges around our necks so they knew who we were with.
I thought the journey was around an hour long to Siem Reap, it was nearly 3 hours long to get there so by the time we arrived it was 7pm, by now we had been travelling 11 hours in total today, it was almost all stress free to be fair so it didn't feel that long and we slept a lot on the bus on our super reclining beds.. I mean chairs!
We stopped and some man came on the bus saying thank you for travelling with us and today we will provide you with a free tuk tuk - I immediately thought SCAM!
But they took our bags off and put them all in the shop, they asked where we were staying and sent us all with different tuk tuks. It was fab! The tuk tuks here are like modern day horse and carriages, they are just attached to motorbikes. They look so cool and they're really comfortable!
Not long before we were at our hotel and I thought a man was trying to say kiss to me when we were getting our bags off the carriage but he was saying jasmine lodge, he was the bell boy. Whoops, sorry for the confused stare!
Our hotel seemed nice and our room is fairly big! First things first, we need laundry done because near enough the entire contents of our bags are filthy! Haha.
From what I seen of Cambodia on the bus it's very baron, fields and fields of farming. Everywhere is flat. There aren't mountains (so far) of what I can see!
We were expecting Siem Reap to be small town with some shacks for food and hotels by the river. Far from it, most of the hotels were five star, they were gorgeous! There was the odd range rover driving down the road, there were food places everywhere, it was manic here! But a nice manic. We went for food, came across 'pub street' and the 'night market' it was buzzing there, tourists everywhere (Siem Reap aren't short of them!) lights and music everywhere it's was really pretty by the river aswell. We just weren't expecting the largeness, wealth and hustle and bustle that is here.
Looking forward to Cambodia!!
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